


Look Out Trouble, We've Had Enough

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [30]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Break Up, F/M, Getting Back Together, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 05:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13517520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: That’s the lingering fear.  Tien just doesn’t like him and is willing to leave the entire city just to get away from him





	Look Out Trouble, We've Had Enough

It’s interesting how everything comes back full circle.  When he was sixteen, he dated a girl and let her believe that he went to her school.  They lost their virginities to each other and he ate at her house and he never invited her to his because he was homeless.  A homeless runaway who stole food from convenience stores to get by.  When things got too serious, he lied and said his family was moving and skipped town.  He always thought if he let it progress, she’d find out he was lying.

Yamcha thought about her, off and on, over the years but it wasn’t until he saw her name, ringed in red and healing on the guitarist from Apetail’s arm did she come back into his life.  He saw her at a party for the record label, holding a baby, and--reconnection.  He told her the truth and maybe it’s because the wounds had time to heal but she forgave him.  It’s nice for him, he thinks, because it means he has friends other than the members of his band.  It’s better when Tien breaks up with him  _ again _ that he has someone to talk to.

The playground isn’t crowded.  There’s a few families with kids there, running around, and he sits with Bulma on a bench while Trunks plays.

“I don’t know what it is,” he says. “Is it me?”

“It’s him,” she replies immediately. “Dude’s afraid of intimacy.  Trust me--I know the type.”

But it’s different for her.  Vegeta opened up--sorta--and they have their son.  He and Tien don’t have that.  Yamcha watches Trunks clamor up a plastic tunnel made to look like a log.

“This mine,” he tells a kid sitting on top of it. “Get off.”

“Trunks,” Bulma calls warningly. “You have to share.”

He makes a face and glares down the kid, who remains resolute.  With all the ire a two-and-a-half-year-old can muster, he slides down.

“Don’t want it no more.”

He runs off, instead, to the play feature with its winding stairs and slides.  Yamcha sighs and pushes some hair over his shoulder.

“Do you know where he is?” she asks.

“On a  _ farm _ or something, out in bumfuck nowhere upstate.” He sighs. “I mean, I’m over it--over him--but it still sucks.”

Their band feels kaput.  Krillin’s spending all of his time with his girlfriend, Piccolo’s doing his own thing, and Tien’s pulled a Jim Morrison and pissed off--but at least, he reasons, it wasn’t to France.  Yamcha knows what he’s  _ not _ doing, though, and it’s him.

“How does that work out for your next album?” she asks.

“Dunno.  We start recording stuff next week so.  We’ll see.”

Yamcha drops his arms.  He’s avoiding the fact that he’s completely upset about Tien’s abrupt departure.  He isn’t over it--he still likes him, maybe even loves him as much as he vexes him.  It’s like Tien’s afraid of being in love, of having a commitment to something, anything.

Or maybe it’s him.

That’s the lingering fear.  Tien just doesn’t like  _ him _ and is willing to leave the entire city just to get away from him.  The thought is troubling and, worse, he can’t bring up his insecurities to Bulma because he’s already lied and said that he’s over him.  If he admits it, she’ll never let him live it down.

So he just has to keep it to himself and hope he gets over it--and Tien--eventually.

Yamcha knows that that isn’t a particularly attractive idea, but it’s all he has at the moment.

\--

It always amazes Yamcha at how nice Bulma’s apartment smells considering the two adult occupants of the house both smoke.  Maybe it’s because neither of them do it around Trunks, so the apartment always smells like whatever scented oil Bulma plugs into the wall rather than stale cigarettes.

Either way, it smells better than the dirty laundry funk of the apartment he shares with Krillin and Piccolo.

He settles on the couch and watches Trunks play with his toys on the ground.  Next to him, Vegeta has his guitar out and is thankfully ignoring him.  His distaste of Apetail has faded (barring Raditz who he can’t say he disliked since he very enthusiastically liked him for a good hour and a half), but honestly, Bulma’s boyfriend still occasionally frightens him.  He’s just so abrupt and short (literally  _ and _ figuratively) and he can’t figure him out.

Bulma’s is insisting that he stay for dinner and Yamcha has just gone along with it.  A free meal is a free meal and also Bulma is the most stubborn person he knows and it’s easier to just agree than try to fight her on it.

“Because I know that if you don’t eat here, you’ll try to pass off those disgusting grape-flavored Twizzler knock-offs only you like as a suitable dinner,” she’d said and, honestly, those had been his exact plans.

“So that loser broke up with you?”

It takes him a moment to realize that Vegeta’s speaking to him.  He isn’t looking at him, though, choosing instead to direct his dark, pointed gaze at the open spiral notebook.  He leans forward to add to a nearly incomprehensible scribble of chords.  Yamcha stares at it, utterly confused.  He’s been playing guitar since he was fourteen, but he can’t begin to decipher whatever it is he’s drawn on the page.  He figures it has to work, though, because despite what anyone thinks of them, no one can deny that everyone in Apetail is incredibly talented.

“He’s not a loser,” he says tiredly.

“He dresses like one.”

“Dressed.  Past tense.  He doesn’t anymore.”

Vegeta shakes his head. “The fact that he owns those clothes is enough.”

He can’t exactly argue against that.  Tien’s fashion sense on their group tour  _ was _ pretty abysmal.

“Whatever.  You could do better.”

It takes another moment for Yamcha to realize that he’s been complimented and he isn’t sure what to say.

“Can I?” He leans back and sighs. “I feel if I even tried looking for something else, I’d wind up doing something I regret.”

“In our group ‘something you regret’ usually ends up being Turles.”

He lets out a surprised cough of a laugh.  Yamcha’s pretty proud of himself that he avoided that during his “sleep with someone to forget Tien” phase of their first breakup.

“He’s good in bed,” Vegeta says flatly, “but then you have to live with the fact that you’ve slept with him.”

“Isn’t he your friend?”

“Yeah, one of my closest.”

He taps the body of his guitar and Yamcha’s eyes settle on the faded scars on the back of his right hand.

“Oh.” He swallows and worries his teeth against his upper lip. “I mean, what I’m saying is that I don’t want to do better...or sleep with Turles.  I kind of just want to get back together with him.”

“Whatever.”

He thinks their conversation might be over and cranes his neck to look over the back of the couch where Bulma is still typing their takeout order into her phone.  He looks back at Vegeta.

“You won’t tell anyone I still have feelings for him, will you?”

He figures that it goes without saying that “anyone” means Bulma.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” he says in his usual gruff way. “Mostly because I don’t care and will likely forget.”

Yamcha rolls his eyes.  Well, at least he’s honest.

\--

It’s inevitable that Bulma would find out.  It’s as predictable as the rising of the sun.  Yamcha has no idea if Vegeta told her or she just somehow figured but she knows and the cat is out of the bag and, honestly, the results aren’t as bad as he thought.  She isn’t mocking him--it’s more of her making understanding faces.

“One time I liked a guy, but we had a fight, broke up, and I didn’t see him for eleven months,” she tells him one morning at her apartment.

He’s been there more often since it’s something to do and his own place only reminds him of the fact that his band is falling apart.  Yamcha fixes her with a look and she lets out a breathy laugh.

“Okay, ‘the guy’ was Vegeta.  Sue me.”

Yamcha patiently waits for her to get to her point because he knows she has one.  Bulma wouldn’t call him over here without some kind of plan or angle.

“So here’s what we’re going to do.”

She leans forward so she’s practically falling off of the couch and props her chin up on her hands where they rest on the coffee table.

“We’re going to drive to that farm and you are going to win back your man.”

It’s a terrible idea, so of course Yamcha is immediately on board.  He agrees partially because the idea is just asinine enough to work and partially because once Bulma makes up her mind about wanting to do something, no one can dissuade her.

“How did you find out where he is?”

“Chiaotzu,” she replies. “He’s on board.”

Yamcha isn’t surprised that she already has this planned out.  Bulma is an evil genius, after all.  He scratches his head and screws his mouth to the side.

“So we’re taking your car, right?  I sold mine.”

Once he settled in the city, he felt no need to keep the car he had mostly lived in for the majority of his teen years.  Public transport was fairly reliable and, honestly, it was another reminder of his terrible life.

“No.  We can’t take my car.”

He quirks his brow and his mind immediately starts calculating the absolutely ridiculous Uber charge.  He knows Bulma’s family is rich, but that’s a level of ridiculous spending he can’t even see  _ her _ indulging in.

“Why not?”

She flops back on the couch and twists a strand of hair around her finger.

“Because I’m leaving Trunks with Vegeta and he might need my car.”

“Doesn’t he have a car?”

“Yes, but it’s twenty-five years old and not safe for a toddler.”

Yamcha scrubs a hand over his face.

“Then how are we getting there?”

She grins and waves her phone at him.

“I’ve already messaged our ride.”

He should know by now that Bulma plans for everything.

“The one stipulation is that either me or you will have to drive because he’s tired and wants to nap on the way.”

“Okay?”

Yamcha has to wonder who it is.

“He’s on his way.”

At that, he has to balk.  Seriously?

“What if I hadn’t agreed to this plan?”

She laughs at the absurdity of that notion and--that’s fair.  Yamcha sighs.  He’s really doing this, huh?  He figures it’s better than her mocking him for lying about still having feelings for Tien and maybe, just maybe it’ll work.

\--

Yamcha isn’t sure who expected to be their surprise driver, but it wasn’t Lapis.  He hops out of the driver’s seat and tugs the baseball cap he’s wearing down further.

“Who’s driving?”

Yamcha holds his hands out for the keys and Lapis happily hands them over.  He yawns massively and rubs at his eyes.

“I’m exhausted,” he says.

He doesn’t look it--not really.  He’s in a pair of stylish-looking joggers and a deliberately oversized shirt with the number 17 emblazoned across it.  How he and his sister always look put together is beyond him.

“We had a show last night,” Lapis continues, “and then I went over to Raditz’s.”

Bulma lets out a giggle and bucks him with her hip.

“Then you  _ definitely _ didn’t get any sleep.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk.”

Yamcha is already dreading being stuck in a car with them both for several hours.  He really doesn’t want to hear about all the sex  _ other _ people are having when and Tien are broken up.

“Let’s go,” he says brusquely. “We’re burning daylight.”

Lapis gives him a laconic salute, bringing two fingers up to his temple and lazily swinging them out.

“You got it.”

\--

“Ugh, doesn’t he listen to anything that anyone’s heard of?” Bulma gripes. “Who the fuck are the Primitive Radio Gods?”

Lapis’s car is older and has no adapter for him or Bulma to plug their phones in to stream music so she has taken to sorting through the collection of CDs in the zip-up case that had been on the passenger seat when they got in the car.

“Awh, he bought Apetail’s new album,” she coos. “That’s adorable.”

Yamcha cocks a brow. “Didn’t you buy it?”

“I mean, yeah, of course I bought it.  It just seems out of character for Lapis to buy it.”

“Really?”

He wants to say that whenever he sees Lapis and Raditz together they look like an advertisement for true love but he doesn’t know how light of a sleeper the other man is and whether or not he can hear them.

Anyway, at least talking about Lapis’s taste in music is a good distraction from whatever awaits them at the end of this two hour drive.

When he’s left alone with his thoughts, the worry sets in.  What if Tien really does want to end it forever?  What if their band is over?  What if this is a waste of time and he’s meant to ultimately end up alone?  He’ll end up alone and Piccolo will achieve solo stardom and move out and Krillin will move in with Lazuli and Yamcha will end up living in Bulma’s guest room, alone and single and having to listen to her and Vegeta have sex four times a night.

“Yamcha.”

Bulma snaps her fingers and pulls him from his fatal train of thought.

“Our exit is coming up.”

She says it flippantly but he knows that she was probably aware of where his mind was going.  He merges over to the correct lane and takes the exit.  For some reason, as they got off the main highway, Yamcha expected the road to immediately become rural but the trees didn’t give way and there was simply more road.

Off the highway, it’s easier to concentrate on the upcoming turns than his thoughts.  The trees have finally given away to wide pastures dotted with the occasional cow.

“Are those beef or dairy cows?” Bulma asks.

“I think it’s just dairy up here,” he says as if he, a city boy his entire life, has any authority on the subject.

The farm itself doesn’t look like much.  In fact it looks _ too  _ nice, like it’s a set for a television show rather than a proper farm.  There’s not a lot of land, but a surprisingly nice house situated on the main property.  It’s painted blue with a bright red door and a pride flag hangs from a pole mounted on one of the porch columns.

“It’s nice,” Bulma says. “I kinda pictured Tien living out in one of those weird Thoreau-looking bullshit shacks.”

“Oh, I know this place.” Lapis’s voice comes from the back seat, surprising them both.

Yamcha slams on the brakes, jerking the car forward.  He glances back sharply to glare at him.

“When did you wake up?”

“Back when you were talking about cows.” He yawns and turns the cap he’s wearing backwards. “I think this place is a co-op some rich couple owns and rents to, like, LGBT kids.  16 was looking into it before we moved to our new place.”

“What changed his mind?”

Yamcha looks through the windshield at the house.  It looks pretty nice, pleasant even.

“Lazuli and I talked him out of it,” he explains. “I told him that my gay ass was  _ not _ living on a farm.”

Bulma snorts. “I thought you were some tree-hugging nature lover?  That’s what Raditz told me.”

Lapis makes a face.

“Yeah.   _ Nature. _  Not a fucking  _ farm. _  No thanks.”

Yamcha lets out a small chuckle and inches the car forward into what he presumes is the driveway.  It’s a wide strip of gravel, at least, and a pick-up truck is already parked there next to a car he knows is Tien’s--well, at least he’s here.  He kills the engine and, immediately, Bulma hops out of the car, brushing imaginary crumbs off of her high-waisted jeans and fluffing up her hair.  Lapis yawns again as he unfolds himself from the back seat.  Yamcha looks between them--Bulma always looks stylish and he’s already felt inadequate in the face of Lapis’s effortless athleisure look--and thinks he looks like a scruffy moron who has no hope of winning his boyfriend back.

It doesn’t matter, though, considering that it’s do or die time.

They walk to the door as a trio and Yamcha feels suddenly indecisive.  Luckily Bulma’s there to ring the bell for him.  He isn’t sure why he expected Tien to be the one to answer the door but he’s somehow surprised when he doesn’t.  A girl with choppy hair opens the door and looks at them.

“Uh, hi,” he says.  His hand automatically moves to rub the back of his neck nervously. “We were, uh, wondering if--”

Yamcha cuts himself off abruptly as the girl’s eyes shift from him to land on Lapis.  The moment they do, they widen to the size of saucers.

“Holy shit!” she exclaims. “You’re Lapis Gero!  From Sadistic Dance!”

From the look on his face, this is clearly the first time that Lapis has met a fan.  The girl grabs his wrist and pulls him into the house.  Yamcha exhales, glad for another distraction, and follows him.  A group of four sit in what he figures is the living room and he notes that Tien isn’t among them.  Not surprising, really.

“Look!” the girl cries. “I swear to God it’s him.”

Immediately, the other four surround them, all starry-eyed and speaking at once.

“I loved your last EP!”

“Tell your sister I loved her solo on ‘Deathless Death’!”

Lapis blinks slowly, so clearly caught off guard in a way that Yamcha hasn’t seen before.

“Is 16 single?”

“Is it true that you’re dating the drummer from Apetail?”

Bulma lets out a giggle and drapes an arm across his shoulders.

“To think we were looking for Yamcha’s wayward boyfriend and instead found the Sadistic Dance Fan Club.”

Lapis has apparently recovered from his initial shock and shrugs her arm off.

“Ha ha,” he deadpans.

Her appearance has shifted the group’s attention to her.

“Hey!” one of them exclaims. “I know you!  You’re dating the lead singer from Apetail!”

Lapis chuckles into his hand as Bulma’s cheeks redden.

“Excuse you.” She places her hands on her hips and leans forward a little as she speaks. “I did not graduate high school at age sixteen and get my PhD by the time I was twenty-four to be known as the lead singer from Apetail’s girlfriend, thank you very much.”

As glad as he is for this distraction and as fun as it is to see Bulma get all indignant on a group of hipster farmers living in a co-op, he has to get to the point  _ eventually. _  Yamcha clears his throat--and trying to shake the feeling of disappointment that no one recognized _ him-- _ and steps forward.

“Hey, uh, we’re looking for someone.  Tien?  Tall?  Kinda buff?  Shaved head?”

The girl who opened the door raises her eyebrows.

“Oh, broody?  He’s in the toolshed out back.  By the old, rusted combine harvester.”

Yamcha tries not to laugh at the nickname and nods his head.

“Go,” Bulma says. “I’ll be here negotiating Lapis’s autograph session.”

“Stop.”

He wants to ask her to come with him but he knows that he’s an adult and he has to do this himself.  He walks through the house to the kitchen where he finds a door leading out back.  Once outside, he follows the girl’s directions to the toolshed.  It doesn’t look like it has any sort of equipment so he can only assume that Tien is by himself with his bass guitar, furiously writing absurd lyrics and pretending he doesn’t need the rest of them.

Yamcha stares at the door dithering between knocking and simply going on in.  He opts for both, knocking before letting himself in.

It’s dark in the toolshed but there’s a small window that allows the sunlight to stream in.  He sees Tien sitting on an overturned crate, his back hunched and a pencil clenched in his hand.  A spiral notebook rests on his knee as he furiously scribbles in it.  The hinges creak as the door opens and Tien drops the pencil, heaving an irritated sigh.

“I said to leave me alone,” he snaps. “I don’t want any roasted beet dip.”

“Any what?” Yamcha can’t stop himself from speaking and he realizes belatedly that he ruined his introduction.

Tien looks up, squinting a bit before rubbing his temples and opening his eyes fully.

“Yamcha?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh.”

_ Trying to win you back? _

No, that’s not right.

_ Wanting to know why you keep breaking my heart and running off like Jim fucking Morrison? _

Not that either--too mean.

_ Because I love you even though you do shit like this, even though you’re crotchety and grumpy and want to write a rock opera, but get mad when I compare it to  _ Tommy. _  Because every day I’ve spent without you since you pissed off to this farm has been shitty because you aren’t in it. _

“I was in the neighborhood.”

Tien makes an exhale sound through his nose that he almost takes as a laugh.

“No, really, why are you here?”

Yamcha jams his hands in his pockets and scuffs his foot along the dirt floor of the toolshed.  Great.  Now he has to actually answer.

“I came for you,” he says. “I...I don’t know.  It was Bulma’s idea.”

At that, Tien cracks a bit of a smile.  He puts his guitar down and rises to his feet.

“You never fail to surprise me,” he says.

“Yeah.  Hah.”

He wants to say more but then Tien is kissing him and all rational thought flies from his head.  Yamcha kisses him back, relishing in the familiarity of it.  Kissing Tien feels like coming home, something he hadn’t had a concept of until recently.  He lets himself be pushed up against the wall of the toolshed, rattling whatever tools are hung up on the pegboard next to them.  He works his leg between Tien’s and rests his hands at the waistband of his jeans.

“I missed you,” he murmurs.

“I missed you, too,” Tien says.  He plunges his hands into his hair and deepens the kiss.

He rides his leg, rubbing against him while he hungrily kisses him.  He has to thank Bulma--this was a brilliant idea.  It worked.  He went to the farm and Tien is in his arms, kissing him and feeling him against him.

And then he pulls away.

Yamcha feels cold, away from him.  His lips feel hot and tingly and he’s hard and confused and--what the everloving  _ fuck?! _

“What?”

Tien turns away, cradling his head in his hands.

“I can’t,” he says. “I don’t want distractions.  I can’t...I need to focus.”

“Focus back home,” he says. “C’mon.  You always pull this.  You  _ know _ we’re good together.”

“You should go.”

He clenches his jaw and crosses his arms.

“No.”

“Yamcha…”

“Tien,” he says, imitating how he growled out his name, which totally  _ doesn’t _ sound beautiful and tortured and poetic.  It just sounds mean. “Why do you do this?  Why can’t you let us be happy?”

Tien stares at him for a long while and he watches the sun tilt in, watches the dust particles float in it, giving him almost a halo.

“I can’t have any distractions, alright?”

Distraction.  The word hits him hard and Yamcha takes a step back.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll go.  See you whenever.”

He doesn’t mention going to the studio or their supposed recording plans.  It probably doesn’t matter.  He feels...foolish and defeated and lonely.

His feet are like lead weights as he trudges back into the house.  In the living room, the five occupants are still assembled and trying to take a selfie with Lapis, who looks minorly amused--although that could just be his face.

“Hey!” Bulma says brightly. “How’d it go?”

Yamcha doesn’t know what else to do so he simply shakes his head.

“You wanna go?”

He shrugs and tries not to look behind him.

“Nothing else for me here.”

\--

It’s nightfall by the time they park Lapis’s car back at his apartment.

“You wanna grab something to eat?” Lapis asks.  He speaks stilted like someone who has no idea how to comfort someone but is clearly trying. “There’s this amazing Mediterranean place a couple blocks over if you don’t mind walking.”

Yamcha has zero appetite but he nods anyway.  Logically, he  _ should _ eat.  Bulma had made them stop for drive-thru on the way up but that was hours ago.

The restaurant is only a short walk away but the lighting is too bright and it takes too much effort to voice his order.  The entire ride back, he’d mostly been quiet, now just talking feels like a chore.  He rolls his falafel around the little plastic basket it came in and sighs.

Lapis rubs his temples and chews on a strand of pickled radish.

“I have a headache,” he mutters.

Bulma nods.

“Those kids at the house gave us some really shitty weed,” she explains. “You’d think being able to  _ grow it on a farm, _ it wouldn’t be so terrible, but I’ve got a headache, too.”

Yamcha nods and puts some of the falafel in his mouth.  He can register it tasting good but he feels a bit disconnected.  Forcibly, he swallows it.  Two hours alone with his thoughts in the car have only served to make him feel worse.

“Hey, as totally fun as this has been, I’m going to text Raditz to pick me up,” Lapis says.  He yawns again. “I still haven’t gotten any sleep and this headache sucks.”

He nods again.  Makes sense.  There isn’t much point to sticking around.  He watches Lapis rub his eyes, his own trained on the heart tattooed on the inside of his wrist.  Yamcha focuses on it, seeing it as a distraction.

“Is that new?” he asks.

Lapis stops to look at it for a moment. “Yeah.  It’s what we decided on instead of engagement rings.  His is made to look like lapis lazuli, like my name?”

“Then what’s yours for?” Bulma leans in and arches her brows.

“Well, he’s named after a  _ road _ and I didn’t want that so I said his name sounded like a radish and I called him ‘my sweet radish’ for three hours straight until we decided that that was what I was getting.”

He almost regrets asking.  It isn’t like he  _ means _ to be jealous of other people’s relationships but now so soon after Tien brutally rebuffed him, it’s kind of difficult to listen to Lapis’s happy engagement to his boyfriend.

Yamcha sucks on his lower lip and prods at his food again.  He should probably face facts.  Tien’s aspirations take precedence over him and--he gets it.  They aren’t where the other groups are.  Hell, no one in the co-op recognized either of them, but he thought that never bothered him.  Their hard work, how they worked together, that was always more important to Tien.  He had been important to him, too.

The door to the restaurant opens and he can tell by the way Lapis’s face lights up in a way he probably isn’t aware of that it means that Raditz is here.

“Hey.”

Lapis stands up to kiss him hello.  Yamcha remembers the moment on the tour when he invited him to his room and “got to know him.”  What if he had committed to that rather than just try to make Tien jealous?  He can’t fully picture it--can’t picture himself with Raditz--but maybe he’d feel better.

“Did you bring your motorcycle?”

“First of all, it’s Uncle Toma’s motorcycle.  Second of all, you said you didn’t feel good so I’m not putting you on it.  I took the train.”

He watches Lapis’s lips curve up slightly and he rests his head on his chest.

“My place, then?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

Lapis gives a little wave and Raditz acknowledges them both with a hitch of his chin, but then he puts his arm about his boyfriend’s--no, his  _ fiancé’s-- _ shoulders and they leave.  Yamcha stares at his half-eaten food and rubs his temples.  He feels a pounding in his head that he, unlike the other two, can’t attribute to shitty weed.

He and Bulma sit in silence for a moment as she quietly eats and he attempts to eat.  Finally, she looks at him, her head cocked to the side and one eyebrow quirked.

“You wanna get out of here?”

Yamcha nods.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t want to go to his place, though.  Knowing his roommates, they’ll both be out and he’ll be alone with his thoughts.  Bulma seems to think this as well.

“Wanna come to our place?”

His mind goes back to his previous thoughts about winding up living in their guest room, but he pushes them away.  It’s not for certain.  He needs to cheer up.

“Sure.”

\--

The sight that greets them in the apartment is nothing short of adorable.  Vegeta is slumped on the couch, fast asleep, with Trunks slumbering on top of him.  Bulma makes a strangled little cooing sound and whips out her phone to take a photo.  Pocketing it, she walks to the couch to carefully scoop the toddler up.

From what Yamcha can gather, he’d already been prepared for bed since his pajamas are on and the two of them simply fell asleep waiting for Bulma to get home.  Something in his chest hurts realizing that no matter how much Vegeta kind of scares him and how when he isn’t scaring him, he’s pretty abrasive, that he cares for Bulma and his kid.  That they’re weird as fuck but the two of them work and here he is, stranded and alone with a guy who’d rather sit in a toolshed writing in a spiral notebook than be with him.

Bulma comes back from putting him to sleep and sits on the couch to nudge her boyfriend on the shoulder.  With a grunt, Vegeta opens his eyes and squints at her.

“Hey,” he mumbles, voice rough and raspy with sleep.

“You fell asleep.”

“That kid wears me out,” he says, stifling a yawn.

Bulma smiles and draws her finger down the rise of his cheekbone.

“He’s as extra as we are,” she agrees. “But are you too tired for…”

The sleepy look is quickly replaced with a self-assured smirk.

“I’m never too tired for that.”

Yamcha sighs.  They’re in the house for less than five minutes and they’re already getting naughty.  It’s like he’s not even here and, really, he doesn’t want to see  _ another _ happy couple.  He stands there for a moment, not sure what to do, but when he sees Vegeta’s hand slip up the cuff of her shorts, he clears his throat loudly.

“Well, I guess I’ll be going,” he announces. “Have a good night.”

He figures that Bulma would have some sympathetic words about how much of a disaster today was if she wasn’t so invested in giving her boyfriend a tonsil exam.  Instead she opts for a wave and Yamcha takes it a good enough.  There isn’t anything she could say to make him feel better, anyway.

He leaves the apartment and opts to walk rather than take the elevator.  Outside, a light summer rain has begun to fall.  It’s the kind that’s warm and feather light and it somehow makes him feel even more melancholy.

He doesn’t know what to do so he walks towards the bodega around the corner from Bulma’s apartment.  It’s one that he knows sells those grape Twizzler knock-offs he likes and he figures he’ll at least be able to eat  _ those. _

The boombox behind the counter is playing the retro station and Yamcha winces against the synthesizer.  He trudges to the candy aisle and finds himself staring at an empty space where.  The label is there, but there’s no candy.  Yamcha sighs and hangs his head.  Because of course.  The turd cherry on top of the shit sundae that has been today is that the candy no one but him likes has to be sold out.

“Do you like this stuff?” He hears the cashier ask.

“No, it tastes like cough medicine.”

The voice sounds familiar, but Yamcha’s pretty sure he’s projecting.

“Then why are you buying it?”

He slips from the candy aisle and ducks behind a stack of twenty-four packs of soda.

“It’s the start of a peace offering.”

He can’t believe it.  Standing at the counter buying three bags of knock-off Twizzlers in “groovy grape” is Tien.

“What’d you do?”

The cashier turns the card reader out for him to swipe and Tien hunches his shoulders up.

“I was a selfish dick.”

“You were.”

He can’t stop himself and Tien turns to see him peeking around the stack of sodas.

“Yamcha?”

He steps out fully and waves a hand as if this is normal.  As if this isn’t some kind of fate bullshit that led to him and Tien in the same bodega on the same night.  As if this doesn’t mean that after he kissed him off, Tien got in his car and drove back to the city.  For him.  That part he’s still having trouble coming to terms with.  He’s in this bodega, buying his favorite snack to--apologize.

“Hey.” He pats his damp hair and chances a smile.

Tien looks at the candy on the counter and slides it towards him.

“This is a start,” he says. “To my apology.”

“Your apology.”

Tien sighs. “Yeah.  You aren’t...you’re not a distraction.  You’re the most important person in my life and it freaks me out a little.”

“It does?”

“Yeah.  I mean, how am I going to be a loner recluse when I’m in love with a bubbly social butterfly?”

“Then don’t be one,” Yamcha says.  He has no plan for what he’s going to say so he simply goes off the cuff. “Stay with me and we can do our shit together.  We can...I dunno.  But I meant what I said.  We’re better together.”

Tien sighs and stares at the fluorescent lights above them before saying, “We are.  And I need  to...get over myself and.  I love you.”

It’s stilted and awful but so perfect that Yamcha almost automatically forgives him.  He doesn’t entirely--they’re adults, he knows they have to build trust back up--but God, this is a fantastic start.

The boombox is still playing eighties music when Yamcha kisses him.  Tien holds him against him and presses his nose into his hair once they separate.

“So what now?” Tien asks.

Yamcha isn’t sure entirely but he has an idea.

“I eat some delicious candy no one appreciates but me and we go back to your place.”

He’s treated to a rare sight, then--Tien’s smile.  His face lights up and he lets out a soft laugh.

“Sounds good.”

**Author's Note:**

> [AU timeline](http://vertigoats.tumblr.com/post/166537761367/since-after-the-first-few-the-fics-in-rock-band)


End file.
